Hearts of Oak: Conquest of the Seas is a non-commercial PC game being developed by PiratesAhoy!, and is to become the historical seafaring game to end them all! Fun, realistic gameplay on land and at sea, set during the Age of Sail, will provide extensive free play, exciting scripted storylines and intense multiplayer scenarios.
Substance Overview
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Description
Showing how substances are used to create dynamic textures to help minimize disk size usage for the game and provide more options for modders and artists.
so there won´t be any "textures" as such? just these substance types applied to certain meshes?
Substances will be used to replace a lot of the disk consuming textures, but not all items will be able to be done through them. Some unique textures will have their texture path the same as normal just for the nature of the item being unable to use them. As far as usage goes, textures are still used, just they are created procedurally instead of stored on disk.
well, you probably thought this through, but I´m a bit concerned about this... since saving disc space in time when you can easily buy TB discs sounds not plausible to me. Especially if you trade it for texture details.
I´ve tried using "stock" textures on my models, but it simply doesn´t look good - you need ambient occlusion (which maybe could be created by engine - at the cost of CPU usage); you need details/decals, so you can save polygons; you need non-repetitive "living" textures, so that you can have dirt on the deck, scratches on edges and all those tiny details which make the texture vivid...
Saving disk space doesn't just apply to the game on a single computer, but also to the distribution of the game and server load getting it out to the masses. If the game is many gigs then the free game we are making ends up costing us a lot more than expected through server space and bandwidth. It also increases the complexity of deploying the game by our volunteer staff by making a deployment take hours or days instead of minutes.
Also, there is nothing that is stopping us from adding that dirt and detail to a mesh on top of the substances. Unity allows for multiple materials to be applied to the mesh so the covering dirt can be added later. The key right now is to make sure the game is small enough to make sure that it can be deployed in a manageable way and by slimming it down using Substances instead of textures, we can do just that.
In unity i use the Bitmap2material and its a great time saving for a good looking visual and less memory usage.
So you make the good choice with substance cuz now lot of game with high graphics visual use substance now.
There is a 'lite' version of that in the Substance Designer that works quite well, just it isn't quite as flexible as making a Substance that is tailor made for a texture file. I have to admit, the space saving is amazing for getting the same output.
Nothing really fancy? Goddamn that looks amazing!
I agree! Looks pretty awesome guys!
Well now that is impressive.
Have they told you yet where you'll need to go to claim your Unity PHD? :P
I am pretty sure I still qualify for the Unity pre-K diploma at best. :)
It puts my mind at ease knowing that smart people are making my dream game. Thanks Hearts of Oak team!